UK Hardware Companies To Deploy Channel Data Management For Greater Business Control

Reading, UK – Zyme, the market leader in the rapidly growing discipline of Channel Data Management (CDM), has today shared research findings which show that UK hardware companies will be taking a closer look at their routes to market in 2016 – with 67% of respondents stating that they would like to understand more about their channel partners, and channel marketing expenditure. In fact, the majority of those interviewed felt that effective channel data management would ultimately give them a greater sense of control over their business (68%).

The report, entitled “The UK Channel Data Management Barometer”, suggests that more than half (55%) of UK hardware companies see the proportion of sales coming through the channel increasing over the next two years. In parallel, and over the same period of time, 53% see the number of channel partners they work with growing. Just 9% reported expected channel partner consolidation or shrinkage. Ultimately, as a result, 79% said networks were becoming more influential within their commercial ecosystem.

“For all organisations a critical business objective to have in place is to ‘grow revenues’. Increased collaboration with channel partners is a sensible way to make significant leaps forward in this area. They are surely your quickest route to reaching new customers,” said Nick Andrews, General Manager, EMEA & India at Zyme. “This research report tells us that the key priorities for channel management over the next 12 months are accelerating channel sales (66%), eliminating channel inefficiencies (64%) and improving ROI from channel programmes (60%). Without a robust way of managing this data effectively, it will almost be impossible to see where improvements have been made and if these goals are on track to being achieved.”

Other areas under scrutiny for UK hardware companies in 2016 include reducing costs (62%), new customer acquisition (59%), improving sales insight and performance (51%), improving data quality (51%) and maximising channel relationships (46%). From the organisations interviewed, 90% saw the benefits of more accurate, real-time channel data in identifying new sales opportunities whilst accurately measuring current demand (85%) in parallel. For 83% the importance was placed on delivering insight to business users in near real-time whilst for others (81%) accurately measuring sales commission / partner incentives was deemed critical to success.

About the research.Zyme commissioned an independent study among UK hardware companies in September 2015. The study was conducted by Loudhouse, an independent research agency in London. A total of 100 decision makers responsible for channel data management were surveyed from companies with an annual turnover of at least £65m. Respondents were sourced across a variety of sectors, including industrial automation, enterprise networking and consumer technology/hardware.

About Zyme.Zyme is the global leader in the emerging channel data management (CDM) space, empowering the New Smart Channel™, a proven approach to creating visibility to actionable knowledge that manufacturers need to accelerate partner sales and optimize marketing program ROI. Zyme’s flexible, cloud-based offerings facilitate enterprise-grade decisions by responding to real-time, granular channel intelligence. Benefits include better-targeted MDF, co-op, and rebate programs, plus improved segmentation. Zyme replaces outdated, ad-hoc systems with a state-of-the-art, cloud-based platform, data steward services, and a worldwide channel directory of more than one million partners for guaranteed database quality, support for a wider range of formats, and best practices that enhance reporting compliance.